Life Changing Times

Sometimes life absolutely amazes me. And I don’t mean in my permanent ‘WTAF’ way around people….

My Iraq deployment was shit. Wrong job for me, 23rd floor in an earthquake, not based in Baghdad where I wanted to be – I could go on. And I have no doubt that you are, at this point, begging me not to.

In my last few demented weeks there, I was connected with WaterAid, an organisation I have never worked with, who were looking for someone for 4-6 months in Zambia.

Did I mention I was demented? However, I am unfailingly high functioning demented – (some may call it CPTSD…) and I managed a successful informal interview whilst in some incredibly shitty guesthouse.

As an aside, the guesthouse that had cockroaches. I can do bombs and bullets, and apparently earthquakes, but I cant fucking do cockroaches. I was already not exactly on stable ground, literally, then met my insect nemesis…I packed up and left the next day.

As I was hiding on the bed 2 hours post interview, because of course the disgusting insects couldn’t get me there, I got an e-mail saying I’d been successful. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

All I could focus on was getting home in 8 days – my plan had been to spend a couple of months at home before taking another contract. So this was totally out of the blue.

I got back last week and in between passing out, and still working on some things, this contract was taking shape. Zambia is somewhere I would love to go, I deeply miss East Africa since I left 10 years ago, and the idea of going to Southern Africa was appealing. Just hard to find anything other than bed appealing.

And then in the last 72 hours it just all happened. I checked it out more, joined some FB Zambia groups, someone posted a gorgeous cottage they were renting adjacent to their family home, literally an hour after I joined. I secured it the next day, my company agreeing to it.

I put a post on FB looking for a dog sitter, unknown to me it went onto IG, an old friend who only uses IG saw it and his 22 year old daughter is looking for somewhere in London. And she will be here for my kids as they come and go some weekends, she’s thrilled, I’m thrilled – win/win.

And then today, an old and wonderful friend from Lebanon days just sent me a connection request on LinkedIn. I saw she’d recently moved to Zambia – she had no idea I’d just accepted this contract!

Our sons were in the same class in school, our daughters similar ages. Other than I can’t wait to see her again, it will be amazing for when I bring my kids out to visit. I saw she was connected to the woman I’m renting the cottage from – I asked her and she said they’d met some weeks before. And when she met her, she really reminded her of me….

Zambia, here I come. Can’t wait.